@Craig Poskus cost of study depends on the property specifics.

Now, for a beginner, my classic approach is to house hack because you get some hands-on experience with most facets of real estate investing without fully jumping in per se.

I am currently an undergrad student studying Business Finance and will be graduating sometime next year.

Get a list of sold comps, drive by them, study the figures and burn them into your mind. 

The courses and exams are fairly easy, with the exception of Exam #3 - spend a bit of extra time studying for that one.As for being self-employed, that's a challenge many of us face.

But I am very optimistic and have been accelerating my learning capacity by literally doing 4 to 6 hours of study each day.

I will get the Millionaire Investor book and study it as those phases makes sense. 

For the time being, read, study, research, etc. all you can and start saving money.  

I plan to write case studies on my successful Lease-Option deals, but have not gotten around to it just yet.

The house is occasionally used for church Bible Study Meetings (the son leads a church in the area).The house has been "in limbo" for a while and my father-in-law is trying to figure out if he needs to do a 1031 Exchange in order to reinvest the money in a rental investment strategy.The house is paid off and is worth over $500,000 and it is located in West Covina, CA